Why does Elusive Mind still exists?

Even the few people who fervently defend mesmer as balanced will admit that being able to dodge while stunned and having a trait that breaks stun on dodge is busted and results in the class being unfun to deal with. This feature of mirage allows the class to completely ignore all forms of crowd control if the class is played even slightly competently. At this point I believe it is only fair to ask the balance team to at least provide a basic explanation as to why a trait that has been proven in multiple way to be a game-breaking mechanic is still in the game. Even if that explanation is "We want the mirage spec to exist as a way for new players to carry themselves" some kind of reason is better than the chirping crickets we keep getting patch after patch.

Without a reason why it's still in the game, the current reason is, well. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck........... ( class favoritism ).

Agree completely. Even if you remove elusive mind and doing something with dodge while stunned, Mesmer would STILL be very strong. Holosmith was strong, this patch shaved some more off some skills. We will see if it is enough. Elementalist received some buffs and changes to auras to improve some weaknesses. Mesmer...still has the same broken traits, and defense after defense that do not scale with stats. I don't want Mesmer deleted, I want a parity of play, at least overall.

Imo (as a Mirage who doesn't run EM) its not that great of a trait. If we couldn't dodge while stunned then yea, it would be an awesome trait, however we can, so it's kinda moot in a sense. Mind you this is just my opinion and the main reason why I never ran EM.

Be thankful that they are EM and not IH

@"Bigpapasmurf.5623" said:Imo (as a Mirage who doesn't run EM) its not that great of a trait. If we couldn't dodge while stunned then yea, it would be an awesome trait, however we can, so it's kinda moot in a sense. Mind you this is just my opinion and the main reason why I never ran EM.

That's exactly what they're saying though. A Mirage doesn't "need" it. So when they have it, it makes them virtually unkillable unless they get greedy. It's actually a lot more annoying in wvw than it is in spvp.

because they don't play pvp so they don't know what to do.

@Fat Disgrace.4275 said:Be thankful that they are EM and not IH

This.

The stunbreak/exhaustion is a gimmick and the only, only reason I use it is the condi cleanse - because I don't like wasting utility slots for cleanse anymore.

Because it was too elusive for the devs to catch

@Curunen.8729 said:

@Fat Disgrace.4275 said:Be thankful that they are EM and not IH

Technically all of them are gimmicks since they all use mirage cloak and mirage cloak being usable during stun makes anything that utilizes it a gimmick by extension.

Hence why both EM and MC are often targeted as two poorly designed mechanics that should be reworked.

I think it’s funny they super nerfed surge of the mists ages ago because it was evading/ccing/high damaging at the same time and therefore “doing too much at once” (nerfs were called for here imo), yet they designed the entire mirage spec’s mechanic around being able to evade constantly while ccing/damaging/stunbreaking/healing, but somehow this doesn’t qualify as “doing too much at once.” ???

@"LucianTheAngelic.7054" said:I think it’s funny they super nerfed surge of the mists ages ago because it was evading/ccing/high damaging at the same time and therefore “doing too much at once” (nerfs were called for here imo), yet they designed the entire mirage spec’s mechanic around being able to evade constantly while ccing/damaging/stunbreaking/healing, but somehow this doesn’t qualify as “doing too much at once.” ???

That's kind of why class favoritism is the only current answer that makes sense.

If you go on the Mesmer class forums and read some of the "suggestions" from various silver-ranked mesmer players, and then look at the balance changes the devs actually make, there exists an uncanny resemblance.

Can the devs please explain why Elusive mind still exists?The same reasons passive aegis/stability/easy breakstunt utilitary/evade/other defense mecanic powercreeped by extension still exist on other specs.

Ya, elusive mind and balance cannot be said in the same sentence

When Mirage is about to get nerfed really, he pops dodge to evade and stunbreak out of it, making the devs nerf something random while buffing ten other things instead.

If theyre unwilling to nerf EM then they can at least shave off some condi application.

@viquing.8254 said:

Can the devs please explain why Elusive mind still exists?The same reasons passive aegis/stability/easy breakstunt utilitary/evade/other defense mecanic powercreeped by extension still exist on other specs.

The same reasons passive aegis/stability/easy breakstunt utilitary/evade/other defense mecanic powercreeped by extension still exist on other specs.yeah!

@viquing.8254 said:

Can the devs please explain why Elusive mind still exists?The same reasons passive aegis/stability/easy breakstunt utilitary/evade/other defense mecanic powercreeped by extension still exist on other specs.

Average ICD of similar traits on other classes: 60ICD of elusive mind: 0

Like come on now.

The funny thing is the other classes passive get out of jail free traits, even with their long ICDs, are considered by many to also be bad for the game.

IMO, the one and only decent effect, that EM has is condi cleanse. Which kinda allows more flexibility with Utility slots.On the other hand, the ability to dodge while stunned (and while casting\reviving\stomping) - that's broken AF. This mechanics exclusively is what making Mirage strong.Why take EM and suffer the quite nasty effect of Exhaustion, while instead you can stay almost as immune to stuns, but as a bonus get an Infinite Horizon?

1H Sword ambush with IH strips 3 stacks of Stab, apply up to 25 Vuln and do a 3k dmg (in addition to standard 600 dash, daze and dmg spike). With a single key-press with 5 sec cooldown. Please tell me how is that weaker, than EM.

@Tiah.3091 said:IMO, the one and only decent effect, that EM has is condi cleanse. Which kinda allows more flexibility with Utility slots.On the other hand, the ability to dodge while stunned (and while casting\reviving\stomping) - that's broken AF. This mechanics exclusively is what making Mirage strong.Why take EM and suffer the quite nasty effect of Exhaustion, while instead you can stay almost as immune to stuns, but as a bonus get an Infinite Horizon?

1H Sword ambush with IH strips 3 stacks of Stab, apply up to 25 Vuln and do a 3k dmg (in addition to standard 600 dash, daze and dmg spike). With a single key-press with 5 sec cooldown. Please tell me how is that weaker, than EM.

Probably IH is stronger but EM is easier for common players

I second the OP request in more general way - whenever a balance patch is up I really miss the overall design intentions of devs. Why are you increasing this CD, why are you reducing this damage and increasing that other one, etc? Simply throwing changes at us is really shady not to mention balance is the most important thing for the pvp crowd.

@EUmad.7645 said:

@Tiah.3091 said:IMO, the

one and only

decent effect, that EM has is condi cleanse. Which kinda allows more flexibility with Utility slots.On the other hand, the ability to dodge while stunned (and while casting\reviving\stomping) - that's broken AF. This mechanics exclusively is what making Mirage strong.Why take EM and suffer the quite nasty effect of Exhaustion, while instead you can stay almost as immune to stuns, but as a bonus get an Infinite Horizon?

1H Sword ambush with IH strips 3 stacks of Stab, apply up to 25 Vuln and do a 3k dmg (in addition to standard 600 dash, daze and dmg spike). With a single key-press with 5 sec cooldown. Please tell me how is that weaker, than EM.

Well it's more like all of the Mirage grandmasters are busted because MC is busted for the reasons both myself and @Tiah.3091 mentioned. All three of them utilize MC and thus can proc through CC.

Elusive mind is just the trait that would require a rework if they removed the ability of MC to evade through CC and other actions, since you wouldn't be able to activate it and thus EM would stop working. That's why I give EM the most shit, because it's the one trait that specifically highlights what is wrong with mirage cloak in general. No class should be able to just flat out ignore the most crucial mechanic of PvP.

IMO the more I think of it the best change is to just nerf MC and then rework EM to be more of an anti-condi trait. Such as removing 2 conditions with no more stunbreak.

@EUmad.7645 said:

@"Tiah.3091" said:IMO, the

one and only

decent effect, that EM has is condi cleanse. Which kinda allows more flexibility with Utility slots.On the other hand, the ability to dodge while stunned (and while casting\reviving\stomping) - that's broken AF. This mechanics exclusively is what making Mirage strong.Why take EM and suffer the quite nasty effect of Exhaustion, while instead you can stay almost as immune to stuns, but as a bonus get an Infinite Horizon?

1H Sword ambush with IH strips 3 stacks of Stab, apply up to 25 Vuln and do a 3k dmg (in addition to standard 600 dash, daze and dmg spike). With a single key-press with 5 sec cooldown. Please tell me how is that weaker, than EM.

IH is pure active gameplay during EM is a noobsaver. Also being able to break out of stun and counterburst is still way stronger than dodge on spot to avoid some dmg and still be unable to use cast/channel-skills and escape without any other cd used. EM negate the stun completely and has no counterplay, even after nerf with exhaustion. Dodging while stunned is strong but has counterplay. It is not broken at all, just strong. Also dodging while stunned and not even nerfed EM are one of the reasons some mirage builds (hybrid and condi) are still op and ez to play.

And for power mirage i quote Helseth: "EM makes a trash power mirage build a bit less trash and for that playable at least for tryhards and none of you plebs complaining could get into higher pvp ranking with it." Playing Power Mirage without EM is even harder even tho IH adds some pressure when you know how to use it. But every slightly above average (and below) player will do better with EM than with IH.

If you use power builds with power lock i find IH much stronger than EM .... but it is a personal taste

@"LucianTheAngelic.7054" said:I think it’s funny they super nerfed surge of the mists ages ago because it was evading/ccing/high damaging at the same time and therefore “doing too much at once” (nerfs were called for here imo), yet they designed the entire mirage spec’s mechanic around being able to evade constantly while ccing/damaging/stunbreaking/healing, but somehow this doesn’t qualify as “doing too much at once.” ???

I still remember when revenants suffered a 70% damage to staff 5 because "too many things at once" and comparing it with these features seems a good joke ...

I’ve fought so many super trash mesmers in high Elo, when they meet a good thief that knows how to play they buckle.

There’s only a few good mesmers out there that have actual skills and make the build look super OP, but in reality, it’s like others said, it carries everyone else into super high rating and then they become a detriment to the team because they are busy getting farmed by good thieves.